The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for precisely and rapidly recording/documenting conditions of relevant evidence at the site of an accident, including accurately recording the locations and conditions of evidence items at the site as soon as possible after the occurrence of the accident. The invention also relates to systems and methods for effectively displaying the recorded/documented evidence at the accident site from various desirable vantage points, and to ways of effectively and reliably utilizing the evidence to draw accurate factual conclusions and legal conclusions to assist in determination of legal liability for the accident.
By way of background, the volume of traffic in industrialized countries has reached levels that lead to time-costing traffic jams that may be caused by even the slightest traffic irregularities. Although an accident happens in a few seconds, making an accident report involves a great deal of time, sometimes several hours or more. The police often are legally obliged to collect accurate information, ordinarily using measuring tapes, pens and paper, to assist in determining legal liability for the accident. To this end, much has to be considered and nothing should be omitted or forgotten in the evidence measurement and recording/documentation process.
Initially, a base point for all measurements must be determined so that all distances and angles can be accurately recorded. In addition, the locations and orientations of involved vehicles, persons (including bystanders), animals, structures, features of the road, and numerous other involved items and the conditions thereof must be measured and/or recorded immediately after the accident. Any tire skid marks must be precisely located, measured and recorded. In order to accurately reconstruct the accident later on, the road and weather conditions and a multitude of other important items also must be noted.
In many countries, the law requires that a sketch or drawing of the accident site be made. In cases of personal injury, making measurements and gathering of other important data must be performed by a competent and legally recognized expert. The resulting sketch or drawing ordinarily needs to be a “work of art” that can be used as a legal document that is difficult to effectively challenge in court. Even if the sketch or drawing varies from the actual accident site, the imagination of the artist who creates such a “work of art” can impart to the sketch or drawing the basis for a legal decision regarding paying or not paying a sum of money that can amount to millions of dollars.
Consequently, it is the responsibility of every investigator who prepares an accident report to be very accurate in describing and measuring every trace and piece of evidence involved in the accident. At the present state-of-the-art, the tools being used to record/document the evidence immediately after the accident usually are incapable of providing the completeness and accuracy needed to adequately describe and the present the evidence. The methods currently in use for taking measurements at accident sites can be divided into the following groups:
1. The known on-site “Distance/Angle Measuring Method” is described in “Technische Analyse von Verkehrsunf{dot over (a)}llen”; Danner/Halm; Eurotax AG 1994, ISBN 3-9520040-5-7 (title engl. transl.: Technical Analysis of Motor Vehicle Accidents) which also includes the sub-variations “Triangular Measuring Method”, “Right Angle—Coordinates Method” and the “Chord—Height Measurement”. According to this reference, distances are measured from a centered, fixed point to the various items on the site. There are different applications in use, but all of them go back to the basic idea, wherein distance is measured from a certain point to another and the angle is determined. Later these measurements are transferred and recalculated into real two-dimensional drawings. The angle is measured using a special apparatus to determine the angle by taking aim at the item with a notch. The described method is very insecure, and failures are not detected until the end of the day. Furthermore, it is impossible to add measurements later to the original sketch.
2. Another known on-site measuring method is described in “Lasergestüitzte Vermessung von Unfallstellen”; Verkehrsunfall—und Fahrzeugtechnik; Kardelke, Diederichsen, Laicher; 05/1998; pg. 151 ff; Verlag information, Kippenheim (title eng. transl.: Laser-assisted Measuring of Accident Sites). This laser-assisted method is based on triangulation using laser to measure distances. The procedure disclosed in this reference is generally as shown and described above, except for the fact that angle and distance measurement is performed electronically using a laser or other optical tools like a theodolit (e.g. Total Station), which is commonly used for surveying landscapes. The disadvantage of the procedure disclosed by this reference is that one static position is used and that there is a need for a second person to hold the reflector. Furthermore, most marks behind walls or even cars (e.g., positions of persons, traffic signs etc.) cannot be measured from that point. Measuring skid marks or other marks on the road is difficult. The traffic area has to be closed for traffic during measurement and the damaged cars have to be moved away. The usability of the system during night, rain and snow is limited.
3. The “Photographic Method”, also described in “Technische Analyse von Verkehrsunf{dot over (a)}llen”; Danner/Halm; Eurotax AG 1994, ISBN 3-9520040-5-7 (title engl. transl.: Technical Analysis of Motor Vehicle Accidents), differs from the above methods (1) and (2) in that it does not call for on-site measurements. This method derives its measurements from the analysis of photographs taken with a stereo camera (3-D method). The known Video-assisted Accident and Traffic Documentation System from DE 199 52 832 A1 also is in the group of “Photographic Methods”. This method disclosed in this reference uses reference objects placed on the road to measure distances and angles based on pictures or videos of accident scene. A disadvantage of this technique is that a large amount of time and a large amount of power is needed to analyze these pictures. The user needs to find a way of taking a photograph from a high elevation, with all relevant items at the accident scene appearing in the photograph. Usually, there is no opportunity to perform any analysis or obtain any result thereof while the user is still at the accident site, so all analysis is performed off site. This will cause a situation wherein the analysis shows that important marks cannot be measured when items at the site are gone.
The foregoing recognized methods for recording accident sites have the disadvantage that although the methodology of each individual analysis may be very accurate, any factual and legal conclusions based on the analysis nevertheless may be incorrect because they are based on measurements that include a very large margin of error.
It obviously is crucial that measurements and locations of evidence at the site of an accident be accurate if conclusions based on an analysis which in turn is based on the locations and measurements are to be accurate. However, measuring of all three coordinates (x,y,z) of a point is only possible with considerable effort, and then only with large (e.g., greater than 10%) inaccuracies. The successful recording of an accident site with accurate and exact measurements is strongly dependent upon the investigator making the measurements and the extent of her/his technical knowledge. If all evidence of the accident is not completely and accurately recorded initially, usually it will not be possible to do so later because the original evidence as it existed immediately after the accident is no longer available.
It is well known that GPS receivers are commonly used as navigational aids on ships, airplanes, and more recently in motor vehicles. A GPS receiver device receives information transmitted from three or more GPS satellites and therefore can calculate its own exact location in 3 dimensions, based on the position of a GPS receiver relative to the satellites and on the transmission times of the received signals. Using standard GPS technology, the resulting accuracy of the measured absolute location of the GPS receiver is precise to within a few centimeters.
Some prior systems for recording information at an accident site in some instances use GPS data to identify locations of accidents. However, GPS techniques have not previously been used to provide measurement of the coordinates of certain points on the vehicles and other items involved in an accident, configurations of damage caused by the accident to vehicles and/or other property, locations and dimensions of tire skid marks and/or other disturbances caused by the accident, etc. This is at least partly because prior GPS solutions are much too expensive. The average cost of such a GPS measuring system consisting of a stand-alone GPS Base station and a mobile station would be roughly $ 40,000 to $50,000. The user must have detailed knowledge of the GPS system and how to measure GPS points. At the present state-of-the-art, only experts in GPS measurements are able to perform these measurements. Because of the format of the GPS data, special software is necessary to convert the GPS data into coordinates that can be used to measure features of roads and other traffic items.
The closest prior art is believed to be indicated in the publication “Development of a Low Cost System for the Automated Documentation of Crash Scenes Using GPS (autoDOCS-GPS)” by Charles Rogers and Darrell Greenlee of Optimus Corporation, presented Jan. 25-27, 1999 at the at The Institute of Navigation (ION) National Technical Meeting conference, Session C1, located at the Catamaran Resort Hotel, San Diego, Calif. The publication describes a system that utilizes a GPS antenna mounted on a survey stake tripod. The antenna is coupled to a GPS receiver, which in turn is coupled to a laptop computer containing software that performs functions of accident scene data collection, post processing of the acquired data into a commercially available CAD package MS Visio™, and report generation using MS WORD.
This prior art system has shortcomings that include using low-cost GPS receivers with poor position accuracies requiring use of Kalman filtering techniques that are used to determine average optimum position solutions with noisy input data and which do not provide a real absolute position accuracy. All measured GPS data must be combined with GPS reference data after leaving the accident site, and then the combined data is post-processed. This procedure does not allow an immediate on-scene check to determine validity of the accident scene measurements. All related software packages are commercially available off-the-shelf products which will accept measured GPS data and are limited in their application to accident documentation. Every measurement has to be made one point at a time, requiring approximately 5 seconds at each measurement point before moving to the next point. Every measurement has to be made by manually setting a tripod mounted pole with associated electronics and manually adjusting the pole to a vertical position with a level. This method results in large measurement errors, and the measurement pole and electronics cannot be accurately used to measure points above ground level.
Thus, there is an unmet need for a system and method for more quickly, accurately, and inexpensively obtaining location, orientation, and dimensional information of evidence items at an accident site so as to enable much more reliable factual conclusions and legal conclusions to be drawn regarding the occurrence of the accident than previously has been possible.
There also is an unmet need for a system and method for more quickly, accurately, and inexpensively displaying and/or presenting location, orientation, and dimensional information of evidence items at an accident site so as to enable much more reliable factual conclusions and legal conclusions to be drawn regarding the occurrence of the accident than previously has been possible.
There also is an unmet need for a system and method that facilitates a return to the accident site and accurately reproduces, with accuracy to within a few centimeters, the locations of objects, vehicles, people, skid marks, signs, etc. that were present at the time of the accident.